Of Sunlit Lust
by Clorinda
Summary: Remus wants to see the world, but Sirius has other aspirations. Like freedom, politics and babies. Remus is quick to come around. Slash. Post PoA. One-shot. Bordering on crack in places.


**Of Sunlit Lust**

**By** Clorinda

**Rated**: PG-13

**Category**: Romance/Humour

**Summary**: Remus wants to see the world, but Sirius has other aspirations. Like freedom, politics and babies. Remus is quick to come around. Slash. Post PoA. One-shot. Bordering on crack in places.

* * *

It's not funny, hiding under the bed in the attic every time the floorboards squeak, meaning someone has just walked into the house. No one comes up to the attic anymore— if they do, Sirius just has to crawl out as a shaggy black dog, and they buy it.

Also, it's not easy making it out alive in Muggle London, squatting in empty houses and leaving footprints in the fridges. Sometimes he finds his way somehow to Remus's house, dodging people muttering about Sirius Black mass murderer and escapee extraordinaire— an entity so far removed from himself.

And all Remus does is offer him dog biscuits. _If_ he's glad to see Sirius.

There's a difference: he's glad to know his best mate wasn't betrayed by the best mate he trusted; but that never changed anything. There were always two Marauders, and two side actors.

Remus loves Sirius enough to allow him into the house when he wants his siesta, but it's the kind of love between men that William Shakespeare stresses on. Remus never went through the I-think-I'm-a-poofter-'cos-I-prolly-fancy-my-best-mate phase. He can't say the same about Sirius; after all, they had been Messers Moony, Wormtail, _Padfoot_ _and_ _Prongs_.

Not that he dares open his mouth to Sirius, but sips the imported Orange Suchong Dust, and makes vague comments like "Always wanted to go to Tuscany."

"The sun's too hot," says Sirius, when Remus mentions it for the fifth time. It's a hot afternoon outside, and Sirius is stretched out on Remus's kitchen floor, the light of the open window falling over his muscular, clothed torso. Remus wants to rip off that shirt, even if only to see what Sirius's reaction will be. It's not like he has never seen Sirius strutting about in his half-naked glory in the locker room after Quidditch practice, but he knows the flesh and muscle beneath Sirius's lean, sun-tanned abdomen has been wasted away by Azkaban.

_I'll fatten him_, he thinks, a welcome distraction from the direction his previous thoughts seemed to be taking. Then he looks at Sirius, sprawled like a mutt, dishevelled and handsome, the glint in those grey eyes, and he feels like saying something appropriately inappropriate.

Sirius beats him to it, even without being on the same wavelength.

"Eh, Moony, you ever think about babies?"

The flush creeping up Remus's neck makes his brain want to correct Sirius's grammar— _anything_ to keep from thinking too deeply about that nonchalant, loaded question.

Sirius is looking at Remus in the eye a little blankly, hiding what he feels. "I go back to Hogwarts and _bam_! — there's my godson all grown up, almost like another person — like thirteen wasted years of my life were nothing—"

_I walked right into that_. "Finish your tea," says Remus coldly, "and don't get too philosophical."

Shaking his hair out of his eyes, Sirius pushes himself up on an elbow and obeys, knowing better than to be hurt. "Where did you get this stuff from anyway?" he asks instead.

"D'you like it?"

"It smells."

Remus laughed. "I was out of coffee beans, so my neighbour lent me some leaves. This stuff is surprisingly expensive."

"Not for Divination teachers," Sirius reminds him sagely.

Remus flicks his head in knowing dismissal. "Actually, they crush each leaf before they give it to the students. They probably use up only a pound of tea leaves each year."

"Cheapskates!" roars an outraged Sirius. "_But_," he adds, "we're in the big bad open world now. We don't have to face Snivellus-types who have taken up the mantle of those wankers whose goal in life is to disgrace the teaching profession. Nah! We have to face upgraded freaks like Dolores Jane Umbridge."

_Nice change of subject_, applauds Sirius's mind. _This'll_ definitely _cheer him up_. And to escape from mortification, his mind pounces on how the afternoon lights shades of burnished gold in Remus's hair. _Such fine hair cut so short_, he mourns. _If I remember right from all those years ago_ (he used to grope Remus while the latter slept just to freak him out; ah! pleasant memories...) _his hair is finer than muslin_—

AND there's no need to go check— he tells himself that _very_ firmly.

"I'm an ex-schoolteacher, and a dirty dangerous half-breed to boot, Padfoot. Umbridge will—"

"Bite her where she's a pain," interrupts Sirius casually. "Wolves are almost dogs anyway— bulldogs—"

Remus's arched eyebrows try to reach high heavens as he wonders if _bulldogs_ is the new, cleaned-up way of saying bollocks.

"—Y'know — a bulldog bites you in the arse and don't let go—"

Again that overwhelming urge to discover where Sirius learnt his atrocious grammar from— all just to _stop_ his mind from building a house in the gutter. "You are suggesting," he clarifies incredulously, "that I do that to the _Senior_ Undersecretary to the _Minister of Magic_ of the _United Kingdom_?"

Sirius shrugs as best as possible. "Want some practice first?"

"_Shit_!"

He winces.

Remus's heart jams itself in his throat.

It is a merciful attempt to shut him up permanently.

He can barely breathe anymore— just waiting for Sirius's next words that will show up the last remark to be absolutely, incredibly, painfully, unbelievably, extraordinarily, remarkably innocent. But Sirius is sitting up properly, long, lean, well-toned legs pulled up in front of him, his eyes holding, trapping Remus's gaze as the latter tries to look away.

Does discordance mean you can't lust—?

To hell with it and never come back, screams his brain. Life is supposed to be all about new beginnings. This one starts with a muffled shout— Remus is knocked off his chair, pinned to the floor, barely remembering to struggle as his mouth is trapped with Sirius's lips, their eyes closing without blotting out the sight of the other's face, inscribed in memory forever.

—- **finis** -—


End file.
